The President, the PM and the Pretender

For a change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not hold out a series of fresh promises to the Indian people, when he addressed the nation on Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort that Shah Jahan built in the 17th century and has continued as a symbol of state power ever since. Dr Singh focused, instead, on the impressive achievements of the UPA government since 2004, attributed the current phase of economic lethargy to global troubles and expressed optimism that India would, if it steered clear of sectarian divisiveness and continued along the path of progress he has presided over these past nine years, vanquish, over the next decade, poverty, ignorance, disease, inequality of opportunity and other such demons routinely targeted at development summits.

Dr Singh elided the systemic crisis that afflicts India today, in which the courts have hijacked policymaking, the executive finds safety in paralysis and Parliament has turned into a war zone where posturing, hectoring and disruption have almost supplanted debate and legislation. A bolder President Pranab Mukherjee ventured to talk of weakening institutions, in his Independence eve address to the nation, even if he did not quite rush in where Dr Singh hesitated to tread.

The rushing in was left to Narendra Modi, who launched a trenchant attack on Dr Singh, faulting him for not being tough on Pakistan and for not launching an attack on corruption. For good measure, Modi proceeded to challenge Dr Singh to a debate on the country’s problems such as a weak rupee and slowing growth.

In attacking Dr Singh thus, Modi displayed plain ignorance of the distinction between the office of the prime minister as a democratic institution and its occupant, a political rival. The prime minister’s office embodies Indian democracy at work, the authority India’s people have delegated to lead the state to advance India’s interests. In attacking the prime minister, Modi attacks Indian democracy itself.

Does this mean that the office of the PM is armour for its occupant against all criticism? Far from it. Democracy at work is not about fixed rules of conduct. Rather it is about modulating form to match content, in every context. To elaborate: when India’s head of government engages with the head of government of another country, he represents the people of India, not just his government or the ruling coalition or party. Any lack of courtesy towards him on the part of his foreign interlocutor would amount to an insult to the entire people of India, not to him as an individual. There should be little confusion on this score.

But when the Prime Minister faces Parliament, the forum for representatives of the people to hold him to account, he should be grilled, questioned, challenged, abused if necessary. When he campaigns for his party’s re-election, he is a political rival, legitimate target for legitimate attack. But when, on the nation’s anniversary of Independence, the Prime Minister addresses the nation, he speaks as the legitimate representative of the people. In Delhi, any monkey can clamber on to any wall of any building. But that is not how Manmohan Singh stood on the ramparts of the Red Fort for the 10th time. He stood there because of the political process that brought his party, the Congress, to the head of a majority coalition and rejected the rival BJP’s claim to station its representative on that spot on the Red Fort from where Dr Singh spoke. When Modi mocks Dr Singh’s Independence Day speech, he thumbs his nose at democracy itself.

Which gels well with his desire for the Prime Minister to be tough on Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that defines itself in its antagonism to India. Modi and his followers would like India to reduce itself to a nation that defines itself by way of hostility towards another country.

India’s armed forces along the Line of Control are capable of dealing with violations of the LoC protocol from within Pakistani territory at their own level. They don’t need jingoistic passion to be whipped up in the country to a level that aborts all other levels of engagement with Pakistan. That is a dangerous game that appeals to petty minds that privilege short-term partisan gains over the nation’s interests. This would be true in anyone’s case. But with the Sangh Parivar, of which the BJP is a part, whipping up jingoistic anti-Pak fervour is part and parcel of another agenda as well: of pushing India’s minorities to the margins of the polity, as part of redefining Indian nationhood as Hindutva.

Where Manmohan Singh’s speech has to be criticised is for its refusal to engage with the systemic problem in which India finds itself. India’s current economic problems do not stem solely or primarily from global economic travails. They stem essentially from the conflict between using corruption as the principal source of funding politics and the increasing scrutiny corruption is subjected to in the media and the courts, leading to possible penal action against even minor accessories in corrupt transactions. Since corruption in India is systemic, as the font of finance for politics, rather than opportunistic, as in most countries, its will to thrive is strong. But fear of exposure and prosecution stymies all transactions for which corruption is perpetrated. This involves administrative and other clearances for infrastructure projects. The result is a steep drop in investment and, consequently, in growth.

The solution is to revamp how we fund politics, to mandate transparency and accountability in political expenditure and source of funds, to reform the justice system, so that all cases are settled beyond final appeal in a matter of months, rather than decades as of today. This would rejuvenate the authority and legitimacy of the political executive and check the tendency for the judiciary to trespass into policymaking and mess up economic activity. A judicial accountability law would reinforce such restraint.

Yes, India needs systemic reform of various kinds. But they come not from undermining either the idea of India as a composite nation whose collective identity draws upon rather than smothers its constituent identities, or the institutional authority of the prime minister. That behoves a Pretender, not a challenger.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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The President, the PM and the Pretender

For a change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not hold out a series of fresh promises to the Indian people, when he addressed the nation on Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort that Shah Jahan built in the 17th century and has continued as a symbol of state power ever since. Dr Singh focused, instead, on the impressive achievements of the UPA government since 2004, attributed the current phase of economic lethargy to global troubles and expressed optimism that India would, if it steered clear of sectarian divisiveness and continued along the path of progress he has presided over these past nine years, vanquish, over the next decade, poverty, ignorance, disease, inequality of opportunity and other such demons routinely targeted at development summits.

Dr Singh elided the systemic crisis that afflicts India today, in which the courts have hijacked policymaking, the executive finds safety in paralysis and Parliament has turned into a war zone where posturing, hectoring and disruption have almost supplanted debate and legislation. A bolder President Pranab Mukherjee ventured to talk of weakening institutions, in his Independence eve address to the nation, even if he did not quite rush in where Dr Singh hesitated to tread.

The rushing in was left to Narendra Modi, who launched a trenchant attack on Dr Singh, faulting him for not being tough on Pakistan and for not launching an attack on corruption. For good measure, Modi proceeded to challenge Dr Singh to a debate on the country’s problems such as a weak rupee and slowing growth.

In attacking Dr Singh thus, Modi displayed plain ignorance of the distinction between the office of the prime minister as a democratic institution and its occupant, a political rival. The prime minister’s office embodies Indian democracy at work, the authority India’s people have delegated to lead the state to advance India’s interests. In attacking the prime minister, Modi attacks Indian democracy itself.

Does this mean that the office of the PM is armour for its occupant against all criticism? Far from it. Democracy at work is not about fixed rules of conduct. Rather it is about modulating form to match content, in every context. To elaborate: when India’s head of government engages with the head of government of another country, he represents the people of India, not just his government or the ruling coalition or party. Any lack of courtesy towards him on the part of his foreign interlocutor would amount to an insult to the entire people of India, not to him as an individual. There should be little confusion on this score.

But when the Prime Minister faces Parliament, the forum for representatives of the people to hold him to account, he should be grilled, questioned, challenged, abused if necessary. When he campaigns for his party’s re-election, he is a political rival, legitimate target for legitimate attack. But when, on the nation’s anniversary of Independence, the Prime Minister addresses the nation, he speaks as the legitimate representative of the people. In Delhi, any monkey can clamber on to any wall of any building. But that is not how Manmohan Singh stood on the ramparts of the Red Fort for the 10th time. He stood there because of the political process that brought his party, the Congress, to the head of a majority coalition and rejected the rival BJP’s claim to station its representative on that spot on the Red Fort from where Dr Singh spoke. When Modi mocks Dr Singh’s Independence Day speech, he thumbs his nose at democracy itself.

Which gels well with his desire for the Prime Minister to be tough on Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that defines itself in its antagonism to India. Modi and his followers would like India to reduce itself to a nation that defines itself by way of hostility towards another country.

India’s armed forces along the Line of Control are capable of dealing with violations of the LoC protocol from within Pakistani territory at their own level. They don’t need jingoistic passion to be whipped up in the country to a level that aborts all other levels of engagement with Pakistan. That is a dangerous game that appeals to petty minds that privilege short-term partisan gains over the nation’s interests. This would be true in anyone’s case. But with the Sangh Parivar, of which the BJP is a part, whipping up jingoistic anti-Pak fervour is part and parcel of another agenda as well: of pushing India’s minorities to the margins of the polity, as part of redefining Indian nationhood as Hindutva.

Where Manmohan Singh’s speech has to be criticised is for its refusal to engage with the systemic problem in which India finds itself. India’s current economic problems do not stem solely or primarily from global economic travails. They stem essentially from the conflict between using corruption as the principal source of funding politics and the increasing scrutiny corruption is subjected to in the media and the courts, leading to possible penal action against even minor accessories in corrupt transactions. Since corruption in India is systemic, as the font of finance for politics, rather than opportunistic, as in most countries, its will to thrive is strong. But fear of exposure and prosecution stymies all transactions for which corruption is perpetrated. This involves administrative and other clearances for infrastructure projects. The result is a steep drop in investment and, consequently, in growth.

The solution is to revamp how we fund politics, to mandate transparency and accountability in political expenditure and source of funds, to reform the justice system, so that all cases are settled beyond final appeal in a matter of months, rather than decades as of today. This would rejuvenate the authority and legitimacy of the political executive and check the tendency for the judiciary to trespass into policymaking and mess up economic activity. A judicial accountability law would reinforce such restraint.

Yes, India needs systemic reform of various kinds. But they come not from undermining either the idea of India as a composite nation whose collective identity draws upon rather than smothers its constituent identities, or the institutional authority of the prime minister. That behoves a Pretender, not a challenger.